Kitch: Hungry ex-clubbers have a new home

Dupont Street is what you would call an arterial road — largely industrial, its primary purpose it to let drivers quickly cross the city east-west while avoiding traffic on Bloor. But turn north on Dufferin and go under the tracks, and not only does the whir of fast-moving vehicles fade away, but a small street lined with businesses reveals itself. Geary Avenue has its fair share of garages, but amidst them are a busy café, a bakery, a sports bar, a band rehearsal space and even an indoor parkour gym. If anything, it looks like a street in transformation.

At least that’s what someone on Twitter thought when they noticed a tiny black sign beside a plumbing appliance store that read, “Kitch: Eats & Beats,” and posted a photo of it, writing “the gentrification begins.”

It didn’t take long before the tweet made it back to one of the guys behind the sign, Bryan Jackson, a 32-year-old event designer and the owner of the Starving Artist restaurant at Lansdowne and Bloor. Along with his business partner Jose Rodriguez, a 26-year-old event organizer who has worked with Toronto club king Charles Khabouth opening such spots as Ultra Supper Club, Tattoo Rock Parlour and La Société, they hope to make Kitch a late-night spot that’s worth venturing north of Bloor.

Sitting upstairs in the 2,800-square-foot space, with it’s bowling lane bar top and collection of ’60s and ’70s paraphernalia — a massive stack of vintage speakers surrounds a DJ booth in one corner, a collection of needle point pictures of various Spanish bullfighting scenes leans against the wall in the other — Jackson and Rodriguez enthusiastically talk about their plans for the spot that was previously a Portuguese sports bar called C-Pass.

“You should have seen the place before,” Jackson says. “There was a mannequin’s arm, for some reason, empty bottles, cards and a stripper pole. Who knows what they were doing up here.”

Whatever it was, it will likely be different than Kitch, which is scheduled to be up and running in the new year and is described by its owners as something between a club and a restaurant, where people can find healthy food, espressos and homemade sodas, as well as have a cocktail or a glass of wine and listen to DJs play music. And while the menu may not be completely decided on just yet, the one thing they do know is that the kitchen will be open late.

Rodriguez, who also promotes DJs, says that whenever an artist from out of town is playing Toronto, “they’re always asking me where the best place to grab a bite to eat after the show is. I can recommend places but not the places I want. Not everybody wants to eat greasy poutine at 11:30 at night,” he says, mentioning restaurants in New York where the kitchens stay open until 4 a.m. Jackson agrees, adding it’s “not an after-hours place we’re looking to build with Kitch, just taking the hours further.”

Between the two of them, Jackson and Rodriguez have 30 years experience in the club scene, and now they’re looking to build the sort of place they would be interested in going themselves. A place, they say, that doesn’t exist in Toronto yet.

“This city needs a place for people our age who are tired of the club scene, but who are still night people and like to go out,” Rodriguez says.

While Geary might not have the foot traffic of Queen or Ossington, Jackson also launched Starving Artist in Bloordale (or is it Blansdowne?) in 2009 and witnessed that area’s gentrification. He expects the same for this area: “There is huge opportunity on this strip. I drove around the perimeter of Bloor and Lansdowne forever looking for a place, then I just happened to turn north and cross the tracks, and here was Geary.”

It’s a bold move, but Jackson and Rodriguez are willing to bet that people will make the trip.

“Who thought that people would go all the way to Lansdowne just to try waffle bacon,” Jackson says about the signature Starving Artist menu item. “But people will always come across town just to try something new.”